The Major Works Quotes

“The splendors of the firmament of time
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“Confound the subtlety of lawyers with the subtlety of the law.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“And I have fitted up some chambers there
Looking towards the golden Eastern air,
And level with the living winds, which flow
Like waves above the living waves below.—
I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,
Folded within their own eternity.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“The person who has been accustomed to subdue men by force will be less inclined to the trouble of convincing or persuading them.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“War is a kind of superstition, the pageantry of arms and badges corrupts the imagination of men.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“From the moment that a man is a soldier, he becomes a slave. He is taught obedience; his will is no longer, which is the most sacred prerogative of man, guided by his own judgment. He is taught to despise human life and human suffering; this is the universal distinction of slaves.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“War, waged from whatever motive, extinguishes the sentiment of reason and justice in the mind.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“It is better that we gain what we demand by a process of negotiation which would occupy twenty years, than that by communicating a sudden shock to the interests of those who are the depositaries and dependents of power we should incur the calamity which their revenge might inflict upon us by giving the signal of . . . war.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“Toward whatsoever we regard as perfect, undoubtedly, it is no less our duty than it is our nature to press forward; this is the generous enthusiasm which accomplishes not indeed the consummation after which it aspires, but one which approaches it in a degree far nearer than if the whole powers had not been developed by a delusion. It is in politics rather than in religion that faith is meritorious.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“Equality in possessions must be the last result of the utmost refinements of civilization; it is one of the conditions of that system of society towards which, with whatever hope of ultimate success, it is our duty to tend.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“Before we aspire after theoretical perfection in the amelioration of our political state, it is necessary that we possess those advantages which we have been cheated of, and which the experience of modern times has proved that nations even under the present conditions are susceptible.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works

“tomes / Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works